The use of electronic devices has increased steadily since the development of transistorized circuitry. Portable electronic devices, in particular, have proliferated modern technological societies. These devices continue to enjoy a rich array of features and benefits as technology paces market demand. Indeed, the lines between products continue to blur as dedicated devices evolve to achieve multifunctional capability. In some cases, electronic communication between electronic devices has provided synergistic effects. That is, a personal digital assistant (PDA) that once served only as a storage medium for a user may now be utilized as a transmission and reception device for sharing files, thus eliminating the tedious chore of manually entering data and further assuring that shared data is more consistently passed from one user to another.
Sharing data may embody many different forms. For example, sharing data may be limited to one-way transmissions or reception, or, in other examples, may be fully bidirectional. As with any technological improvement, sharing data brings unexpected benefits as technological obstacles are overcome. FIG. 1 is an illustrative prior art representation of a number of mobile devices sharing files such as is described in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2006/0270395, which is incorporated herein by reference. As illustrated mobile device 102.1 includes a sync module 104.1. Sync module may be utilized to synchronize playback among any number of other mobile devices such as mobile devices 102.2 to 102.n each having sync modules 104.2 to 104.n respectively. In these examples, a shared song may be heard by all participants at roughly the same time. Thus, users may share a common listening experience in private. Methods provided for the system as described above rely on sharing copies of the same file. In this manner, synchronization may be readily attained across devices.
However, sharing copies of the same file may, in some instances, not be entirely practical. Licensing has increasingly become a critical issue when attempting to distribute media. Thus, any sharing system would require some method of either extracting a licensing fee from other users or providing for limited use of files. As may be appreciated, in either case, the transfer of large media files would tend to slow the distribution of a play list and may, in some examples, provide an undesirable user experience. Further, because users tending to share audio and video files in this manner also tend to have similar tastes, the likelihood that sharing users have similar files is high. Thus, requiring file transfers may exert an undue overhead on bandwidth for the members sharing the files.
Therefore, systems and methods for synchronized media playback between electronic devices, which provide for a shared experience having enhanced synchronization and avoiding unnecessary file transfers are provided herein.